


Hating Him

by darkgaaraluver



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Slash, The Prank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29459817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkgaaraluver/pseuds/darkgaaraluver
Summary: Remus realizes at the worst time that he loves Sirius
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 13





	Hating Him

Remus looked down into Sirius’s pleading face, his eyes made huge and his lip jutting out. On his knees was a good look for him. 

Remus wanted to pull his hair out. 

He’d yelled at first. Screamed until his throat hurt. Sirius had looked pale and drawn that first day, had apologized. But Remus couldn’t even look at him, imagining how much Sirius had almost taken from him and how little he seemed to care. 

Eventually he ran out of words. So he ignored Sirius as much as he could. Through the rest of October and all of November until now, the first full moon since the Christmas holidays.

Sirius started by staying away, probably waiting on Remus to cool down. Then he started trying to ambush him. Randomly pulling him into alcoves and unused classrooms. Everytime Remus’s heart gave a sickening lurch when he’d look at him. He’d never really heard Sirius sincerely apologize for anything before. The torches along the walls always gave him a grave look when he wasn’t grinning.

Remus could only look at his face. He couldn’t say a word, his mind running a loop through all the reckless things Sirius has done. How he thought the one thing Sirius would never be reckless with was the lives of the other marauders. 

When he realized it wasn’t working he took to following Remus around and trying to do things for him. Carrying his books, opening doors, giving him chocolate. 

Remus hated it and he hated him.

Because it was only once he knew for certain that Sirius didn’t, couldn’t, truly care about him that he realized he was in love with him. 

The prank Sirius pulled was something Remus might have been worried that someone like Snape would pull if they knew his secret. It was never something he’d worried about from the people closest to him. People who had spent years talking him down from his fears of killing or turning someone, of being kicked out of school. Who Remus trusted to take him out into the wild when he was a monster. Who changed themselves so they could help Remus. 

Sirius was a careless, reckless, danger to himself when he played Quidditch. When he planned pranks with daring escapes. When he fought. 

But he’d always been so careful with Remus. 

Always the first to try and help when he was injured. Always careful not to keep his distance when Remus was feeling most like a monster. 

Remus was miserable ignoring him. 

It was always too quiet and tense, the other marauders laden down as well. He missed the sound of Sirius’s barking laugh, the way he tossed his hair over his shoulder when he was being dramatic. The smell of his shampoo when he leaned a head on his shoulder. 

Most of all Remus missed him during the full moon. 

The wolf noticed the absence of his canine companion and seemed to go crazy at the loss, lashing out more at himself and others. James just couldn’t hold him off as well by himself. He’d already had to go to the hospital wing when Remus got him with his claws, leaving a nasty scar on his shoulder. 

Remus found himself fighting with James as well after that one, trying again to get them to stop, that it was too dangerous. 

Sometimes after a bad moon, Sirius would slip through Remus’s curtains after everyone had gone to sleep and sit with him while he cried. Sometimes he slipped in when it wasn’t even near a full moon and told Remus things. Things about his mother. His family. And it would be Remus’s turn to hold him while he cried. 

There’d been a full moon over Christmas break that year. 

He’d woken up in his own cold cement basement, bleeding and alone, and laid on the floor and decided he was going to accept Sirius’s next apology. He wasn’t sure he did forgive him, but he couldn’t go on like this. 

And now here it was. Sirius seemed to think that if private apologies wouldn’t work, an embarrassing public one would. As soon as Remus had sat down on a couch in the common room Sirius pounced, kneeling in front of with his hands under his chin.

Remus hated him. 

Hated his hair, and his cheekbones, and his eyes that always seemed to light up with mischief when he was plotting. Hated his friendship, and his easy touches, and his thoughtlessness, and his self-destructive behavior. Hated how much he wanted to pull him up into his lap and kiss him. 

But mostly Remus hated himself. And wasn’t that a familiar feeling?

He hated that he already knew he was going to forgive him. Hated that he had feelings for his best friend at all. Hated that he was going to go against himself to forgive him, and that when he did nothing would change. Sirius would never love him back. 

Even as Remus beat himself up he smiled down at Sirius for the first time in months, a kind of awful relief coming over him. “I forgive you.”

Sirius immediately dropped all exaggeration as his eyes lit up, his hands dropping to Remus’s knees, his voice suddenly quiet. “Really Moony?”

“Yes. Now get off the floor and back on the couch before I change my mind.”

Remus pretended to go back to reading while Sirius scrambled back up. Remus glanced from the corner of his eye as Sirius sat normally first, and then, shooting looks at Remus the whole time, gently laid his head on Remus’s shoulder. Remus closed his eyes for a second when he caught the scent of Sirius’s shampoo. 

He opened them again when James’s feet landed in his lap. Remus looked over at James at the other end of the couch and James gave him a wink. Pete had moved from his chair to sit on the floor in front of the couch where James’s feet ought to go and was grinning up at him. 

Remus sighed and let his hand come up to run through Sirius’s hair as he turned back to his book. Sirius finally relaxed beside him. 

Maybe he made the right decision. 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short, bare thing really. It's always really bothered me that the prank and the scene after their OWL's takes place in the same year, I could never quite believe that Remus just forgave him that quickly to be back to where they were normal by the end of the year. I mean, this is the thing that plants the seeds of Remus not trusting Sirius later, of believing he even could have possibly been the traitor. I believe it's also the year they completed their animagi transformations so that may have helped. In this I head cannon that they'd started coming with him over the summer. Anyway I thought it would be interesting if Remus realized his feelings for Sirius while he was more mad at him than he'd ever been. If I wasn't writing my huge drarry fic I might write a real fic for it. Feel free to use it as a prompt or whatever, I'd love to read it.


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